Outlook; pressures
hated it. Being “chained to a desk” at Metro-Vickers in Manchester drove him mad. He says: “I found industry to be full of old men whose only joy in life was waiting for the next cup of tea.” Most people would have just taken the tranquilisers - or to drink - and got on with it until they, too, became sad and neurotic old men. The Victorian work ethic, after all, dictates that if you enjoy your work, it isn’t work.
ple, and when a derelict and isolated farm came onto the market, at the right price, and in his beloved Burnley countryside, he bought it, stocked it with sheep and classic novels, and settled in.
But Titus ain’t most peo
Scotland. Now the area’s clean, and Titus wants peo ple to enjoy it. He also wants to save them from the horrors of the Bank Holiday neurosis.
quite matter-of-factly.‘T’ve seen people year after year, either dashing along in cars with a kaleidoscope flashing by them, or sitting hunched up in traffic jam after traf fic jam. Either is terrible for the nervous system.'You see them at the end of a supposed day out, jaded to the back teeth.
“It’s a mission,” he said,
boyhood, he still tends his flock on two wheels,like a cross between the Firestone Cowboy and a Hell’s Shep herd. But he has found time between round-ups to write three novels and a host of TV plays (all, alas, so far unreleased), and become one of the to]) authorities on local walks and local history.
A motor bike fanatic from
definitive history of Cli- viger, complete with the most perfect, hand-drawn series of chronological maps, and now conies “Tak ing the Car for a Walk”. What prompted it?
In 1987 he wrote the
remembers a time when no- one would come anywhere near this area unless they had to, and certainly not for pleasure - a time when everything was black, and anything you touched made you black too. He tells of seeing a flock of white sheep being driven through Tow- neley and thinking they must be some rare breed: it turned out they had just been brought down from
Well, for one thing he O ’
away from it all, they can’t find anywhere to park, and when they do start walking they get lost within the hour, because most walking g u id e books a re too sketchy.
“If they do try to get
with my dad when I was six or seven, and he could point out something of interest all along the way. 30 years ago, all the foot paths were plain as a pikes taff too. You try it now - you can find them on the map, but not on the ground. So I came up with an idea to write a book explaining exactly where to go, every foot of the way, and what you’d find as you went.
“I used to walk this area TITUS’S isolated farmhouse, full of character, full of history, and full of Titus, the Renaissance man
no n -ram b lin g , casual walker, it is invaluable, the definitive weekend jaunt manual. And it’s illustrated. Get a copy - you won’t regret it, honest guv.
EPILOGUE
Frost, and he said that if I wrote it, he’d publish it. It took a long time - I had to pace out every yard of every walk myself. Having done that, I’d give a rough draft of the route to friends to try for me, and incorpo rate their observations in a final draft.”
“I put the idea to Roger
to say that, and the result is very readable, very com p reh en s iv e , and very obviously the work of an enthusiast. It’s aimed at the motorist, so every walk is a round trip, out from, and back to, your car. For the
It’s thorough, you have
over, we stepped back onto the bedrizzled moor, and once outside our intrepid photographer, Alan Mars- den, asked Titus if he’d ever been snowed in. “Oh yes,” he said, “in 1962 I was snowed in from Boxing Day to April. I took the Land Rover across country, no problem. If I ju s t get snowed in for the week, I get my rucksack and walk into town for food.” Easy, yes?
Our interview almost
a mile and a half from the road, and when he reaches that, he’s still a good cou ple of miles from Burnley. He’s 77.
Titus Thornber’s house is
track until we come to the cobblestone causeway. Titus laid it, with a friend, during one summer. That was was no problem either, he said. It is a perfect example of cobble stoning, complete with kerb stone. When he has completed his present part-time labour of love - restoring a pre-war Jowett from the rust up - he can drive the result out along it. We are supposed to tug
We drive back along the
T a k i n g t h e C a r fo r a W a lk
Tifus Thornber ■M,
gHHt ■-v-UsH
,i i ra^ J S l i ' -Af :
the forelock and fawn in the presence of officials, judges, politicians, and the other elevated members of the social elite. I doubt if anyone will ever fawn in the presence of Titus Thornber. His teacher, a “martinet” called Burton, once told him: “Thomber, I see noth ing but disaster for you!”, and people still tell him all the time that he’s on the wrong track. That’s their problem. For me, Titus is THE Renais
sance man, self-suffi cient,and self-motivated. What he does, he does good, and he does it because he sees value in it. Maybe he’s the last of a dying breed. If he is, i t ’s our loss. Of course, it makes sense: I mean, no-one with the ini tials TT could be all bad, now could they!
“Taking the Car for a Walk”, with illustrations by Jack Greenhalgh and photos by the late Leslie Hardman, is published by Rieve Edge Press and Arc Publications. It is avail able from bookshops, heri tage centres, museums and travel centres at £3-95.
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